Elizabeth Jensen has an interesting piece in the New York Times today (6/20/11) about Los Angeles public television station KCET. After deciding to cut its ties to PBS, the channel is experimenting with different programming options, including Al Jazeera English. And the results so far, according to one station official: Mr. Marcus said he had been braced for some criticism from viewers about Al Jazeera English‘s point of view, but ‘most people think it’s been very even-handed.’ He praised the scope of coverage, noting that last week the program carried reports from Argentina, China and Sri Lanka. ‘I would guess […]

The L.A. Times has an interesting piece (10/22/10) about KCET, the local PBS affiliate that is bolting from PBS because it says it can’t afford to pay the fees PBS wants to charge them. What happened is that KCET, for a little while at least, was very good at raising corporate money; the PBS fee formula required them to pay more as a result, even though that corporate underwriting was supposed to be used for producing programming. Who did the money come from? Oil giant BP.So much money that, as the Times noted, “in gratitude KCET bosses renamed their historic […]